1st. As we are creatures, we owe the Debt of Obedience. And to the payment of this debt we stand bound, both to the absolute sovereignty of God, who is the Supreme Lord of all his creatures, and therefore may oblige them to what he pleaseth; and, likewise, by his manifold favours and mercies conferred upon us. From him we have received our beings and all our comforts: he maintains us at his own cost and charge: he enlargeth us when we are in straits, relieves us when we are in wants, counsels us when we are in doubts, comforts us when we are in sorrows, delivers us in our dangers; and, besides the manifold temporal mercies we daily receive from him, gives us the means, the hopes, and promises of obtaining far better things at his hands, even eternal life and glory: and, therefore, certainly, upon these accounts we owe him all possible service and obedience. And, indeed, it is but reason we should employ all for him, from whom we receive all: and give up ourselves to his service, who are what we are by his bounty; and hope to be infinitely better, than now we are, through his mercy.

Now this Debt of Obedience is irremissible; and we are eternally and indispensably bound unto it: for it is altogether inconsistent with the notion and being of a creature, to be discharged from its obligation to the laws and commands of its Creator; for this would exempt it from the dominion of God, and make it absolute and independent; that is, it would make the creature to be no longer a creature but a deity. We do not therefore pray, that God would forgive us this debt: no; he cannot so far deny himself, and it is our happiness and glory to pay it. To this his sovereignty obligeth our subject condition; and his mercy and goodness, our ingenuity.

2dly. As we are transgressors, so we owe God a Debt of Punishment; to be suffered by us, to make God some reparation to his honour and satisfaction to his justice, for our transgressing his law, which sentenceth all offenders to eternal death and damnation.

This debt, now, is that, which we pray God would forgive us; a debt, which, if we pay, we are eternally ruined and undone : and there is no way possible to escape the payment of it, but by the free grace and mercy of God remitting of it unto us. And thus sin is called a debt: not indeed properly, as if we owed it; but by a metonymy, as it is the meritorious cause of this punishment, the suffering of which we owe to divine justice.

Hence, by the way, we may observe that every sin makes us liable to eternal death: for death and damnation is the debt, which we must pay to the justice of God; and sin is that which exposeth us unto it, by the sentence of the Law which we have transgressed. For as, against other debtors, is brought forth some bond or obligation to exact payment from them; so, against us, is produced the hand-writing of the Law: and we, not having performed the condition of the bond, stand liable to the forfeiture and penalty; which is no less than curses, and woes, and torments, and everlasting death. Cursed is every one, that continueth not in all things, written in the book of the Law, to do them: Gal. iii. 10. And, the wages of sin is death: Rom. vi. 23. And, the soul that sinneth, it shall die: Ezek. xviii. 4.

[2] Now here to excite thee to a fervency in praying for the forgiveness of thy debts, consider,

1st. The infinite multitudes of thy debts.

God's book is full of them; and there they stand on account against us, under every one of our names. We were born debtors to God. Our original sin and guilt obligeth us to punishment: and, although we did not personally contract the debt; yet, as being the wretched heirs and executors of fallen Adam, the debt is legally devolved upon us and become ours. And, ever since we came into the world, we have run upon the score with God: our debts are more than our moments have been: for whatsoever we have thought or done hath been sin; either in the matter, or at least in the circumstances of it.

God sets all our sins down in order in his debt-book: some, as Talents; and some, as Pence.

Our flagitious crimes and heinous impieties; our presumptuous sins, committed against light, knowledge, conscience, convictions, mercies, and judgments; each of these God sets down as a Talent: and how many thousands of these may we have been guilty of!

Our sins of ignorance, surreption, and daily infirmity are much more innumerable: and though they may be but as Pence, in comparison with the other; yet the unaccountable numbers of them will make the debt desperate, and the payment impossible. And yet, notwithstanding our debts are so many, and very many of them such great sums too; yet we daily run ourselves farther in arrears; not considering that a day of accounts will come, when both our talents and our pence shall be punctually reckoned up against us, not omitting the least item; when every

vain thought and foolish passion that hath flushed up in us, with every idle and superfluous word that we have unadvisedly spoken, as well as the more gross and scandalous passages of our sinful lives, shall be then audited: all which will make the total sum infinite, and us desperate.

2dly. That God, who is thy creditor, is strict and impartial. His patience hath trusted and forborne thee long; but his justice will, at last, demand the debt severely; and every particular shall be charged upon thee, even to the utmost farthing: for he hath booked down all in his remembrance, and will bring all to thine and, therefore, we have it expressed concerning the Last Judgment, that the books were opened: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works: Rev. xx. 12. What now are these books, but the two great volumes of God's Remembrance, and our own Consciences? These are two tallies evenly struck, that shall justly represent the same sum and debt: and God's strict justice will not then abate thee anything of its utmost due; for he will by no means acquit the guilty. Indeed, we are apt to think, that, because God so long forbears us, he will never call us to make up and adjust accounts with him: our present impunity tempts us to question his omniscience, and to suspect his threatenings and, because he winks at us, we are ready to conclude that he is blind: we are of that wretched temper, described, Ps. 1. 21. Because God keeps silence, we think he is altogether such a one as ourselves; as careless in requiring his debts, as we are in contracting them: but he will reprove us, and set them in order before our faces, to our everlasting shame and confusion.

3dly. That the least of all these thy debts make thee liable to be cast into the prison of hell, and to be adjudged to eternal death and punishments.

Not only thy impudent and scandalous sins, which make thee detested of men as well as hated of God; but the least shadow of a thought that gives but an umbrage of vanity to thy mind, the least motion and heaving of thy heart towards a sinful object, the exhaling but of one sinful desire, the wavering of thy fancy, a glance of thine eye, is a debt contracted with the Infinite Justice of God; and a debt, that, without forgiveness, must be paid in the infernal prison of hell. So says our Saviour, Mat. v. 26. Verily, thou shalt not come out thence, till thou hast paid the uttermost farthing.

Beware therefore, then, that you do not entertain any slight thoughts of sin: nor think, with the Papists, that there are some sorts of sins, that do not deserve death; which they call Venial Sins, in opposition to other more gross and heinous sins, which they allow to be Mortal. Believe it, the least prick at the heart is deadly; and so is the least sin to the soul.. And, indeed, it is a contradiction to call any sin venial, in their sense, who hold it is not worthy of damnation: for if it be a sin, it is worthy of damnation; for the wages of sin is death: if it be not, how is it venial?

There is but one mortal sin, simply and absolutely, such as God hath revealed in his word that it shall never be pardoned, neither in this world, nor in that which is to come: and that is the Sin against the Holy Ghost; which St. John therefore calls a sin unto death: 1 John v. 16. And so far are they, who are guilty of it, excluded from God's mercy, that they are excluded from the charity of our prayers: for we are not so much as to pray for such; as it is there expressed.

Again, all the sins of finally impenitent and unbelieving wretches are eventually mortal, and shall certainly be punished at last with eternal death and damnation: for the wrath of God abideth on him, that believeth not: John iii. 36. And God will render indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, upon every soul of man that doeth evil: Rom. ii. 6, 8, 9.

All sins whatsoever are mortal, meritoriously; both in the penitent and in the impenitent. The Law hath condemned all alike. Though all sins are not alike heinous, nor shall be equally punished; but with some it shall be far more intolerable than with others yet all are alike mortal, and deserve death and the same hell; though not the same place, nor the same degree of torments in hell: for those sins, which are accounted most trivial and venial, are in themselves violations of the holy Law of God, and the penalty that his laws threaten is no less than death.

The Law is accurate, and reacheth to the least things; yea, to the least circumstances of those things: and every transgression against it shall receive its due recompense of reward. Nay, had we no other guilt left upon our souls, from the first moment of our lives to this present day, but only the guilt of the least sin that the holy Law condemns; be it only the wrenching aside of a thought or desire, only a bye and sinister end in the performance of holy duties, nay let it be but the first rudiment and imperfect draught of a thought not yet finished,

without a full satisfaction and expiation, this small debt would cast us into prison; this little sin would sink us irrecoverably into hell, and lay us under the revenges of the Almighty God for

ever.

Oh, then, with what horror and amazement, may sinners reflect upon their past sins! With what dread and trembling, may they expect their future state: since as many thousand sins as they have committed of all sizes and aggravations, so many deaths and hells heaped up one upon another have they deserved; and, without intervention of a full payment and satisfaction, must they be adjudged to undergo! For, though the least degree of divine wrath be a tormenting hell: yet God will inflame his wrath to as many degrees of acrimony and sharpness, as they have committed sins; till their punishment be equal to their offences, and become infinitely intolerable.

4thly. Consider, thou canst never pay God, nor discharge the least of thy debts for ever.

For,

(1st) Thou canst not possibly do it, by any Duties or Services in this life.

For, whatsoever thou dost is either required or not required. If it be not required, it will be so far from being a satisfaction for thy sins, that it will be an addition to them; and a piece of will-worship, which will meet with that sad greeting at the Last Day, Who hath required these things at your hands? If it be required, it is no more than thou owest to God before; and, if thou hadst never sinned, wert obliged to pay it: to think to satisfy for thy sins by thy duties, is but to rob one attribute of God to pay another; for, whatsoever obedience thou canst perform, thou owest it to the sovereignty and holiness of God, and his justice will never accept of that which belongs to his authority: besides, it is absurd to think to pay one duty, by another; to discharge the debt of sin, by paying the debt of duty.

(2dly) Thou canst not pay off thy debts, by any Sufferings hereafter.

It is true, sinners shall lie eternally in prison, and be eternally satisfying the offended justice of God: but, in all that eternity, there shall never be that moment, wherein they may say, as Christ did in his making satisfaction, "It is finished: the debt is paid; and justice hath received as much as was due from me." No that satisfaction must be eternally making: and therefore the punishment must be eternally lasting. For every